I am almost done editing all my stories, and it feels surreal.
This has been a project that I have thought about, worked on, feared, been excited about, and created since August. I think I may have even conceptualized it in July, when I was still interning as a reporter for the paper.
So far, I am happy about how things have come along. I learned so much throughout the last almost six months with interviewing different girls about their lives. I learned about them, and I learned about me, and I am mostly proud of the fact that their stories run through all of the stories I have put together for this collection. They are in all of them, not just one, and I feel as though I have done their life experiences justice.
I actually showed some to Mara, my friend who I blogged about a while ago now, because I feel as though her experiences pop up in many of the stories, probably the most out of all the girls I interviewed. She said she was proud of my work and it was a really nice experience being able to show her as we drank wine in her apartment and talked about what it really is like to be a young woman in our day and age.
I am conceptualizing the rest of the photoshoots and I am super excited because a friend of mine, who also works at MAC, knows a woman who has a really cool look (and life story) and she has agreed to model in two of my photoshoots. That a task I am happy to say I got down because I was worried I would not be able to find someone who is older to pose in photos, since most of the people I know are around my age.
Also, for one of the photoshoots I have coming up this week, I have to create the illusion that the model has freckles, since the character in the story has freckles and although the freckles play a small part in the story, they are very symbolic of the relationship the character has to her mother, as her mother has freckles, too.
So, I leave you with this, which is a photograph taken this weekend as I was working at MAC with my friend Robyn. I am on the left and these are the freckles I created on my own face, in preparation for this photoshoot:
